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We are the most comfortable generation in human history—and quite possibly the most annoyed. Our ancestors survived harsh winters, scarcity, predators, and genuine danger. We lose our composure when the Wi-Fi buffers or DoorDash is 10 minutes late. This isn’t because we’re weak; it’s because our brains weren’t designed for a world this easy. And strangely, the easier things become, the more intolerable any inconvenience feels.
We live in an age where so many of our daily frictions have quietly disappeared. Our homes stay at the perfect temperature with barely a thought. Meals show up at our doors. If we’re bored, we swipe, scroll, stream, or tap our way out of it.
On paper, this should be a recipe for contentment. And yet, so many of us walk around tense, overwhelmed, and oddly irritated by the tiniest things. A slow-loading website can feel like a personal insult. A long grocery line feels unthinkable. And a quick scroll through social media suggests that everyone, everywhere, is on edge.
Michael Easter’s (2021) book The Comfort Crisis offers an explanation that feels uncannily accurate. He describes two related forces—comfort creep and problem creep—that help explain why, even as life improves in material ways, our distress seems to be climbing in the opposite direction.
Comfort Creep: When Ease Becomes Expectation
Comfort creep happens slowly, almost invisibly. As life becomes easier, we adjust quickly. The thing that felt like a luxury last year—a car that starts remotely, groceries delivered within an hour, heating that clicks on automatically—becomes the bare minimum this year. The strange truth is that humans are wired to normalize comfort. And the more comfort becomes our norm, the less tolerance we have for anything that deviates from it.
Suddenly, delays that would barely register in past generations feel unbearable. A slightly chilly room feels like an assault on our well-being. Minor friction starts to feel like a major disruption. It’s not that we’re spoiled; it’s that our nervous systems get used to whatever environment they encounter most. When the environment is smooth and cushioned, even tiny bumps feel enormous.
Problem Creep: When Mild Issues Become Major Threats
Problem creep comes from a different angle, but it works hand in hand with comfort creep. Levari and colleagues (2018) found that when the frequency of actual problems decreases, we start labeling more neutral things as problematic. Participants in their research studies judged neutral faces as threatening when threatening faces became scarce. They judged mild behaviors as unethical when major unethical behaviors were removed.
It’s as though the brain insists on keeping the same number of “problems” in circulation, even if the world improves. This means that when life gets objectively better, it can still feel like it’s getting worse. Our perceptual standards quietly expand. Without a conscious shift, we just keep finding new things to be upset about.
How Comfort Creep and Problem Creep Reinforce Each Other
Together, these processes create a psychological double-whammy. As comfort creep raises our expectations for how easy life “should” be, problem creep broadens our definition of what counts as a problem in the first place. The two meet in the middle and convince us that ordinary life is harder than it actually is.
This helps explain why so many of us feel overwhelmed by things that, on reflection, are objectively small. It also explains why cultural conversations, especially online, can feel so charged. If our expectations are sky-high and our problem definitions are expanding, we’re primed to feel constantly disappointed, offended, or stressed. Seneca’s old insight, “We suffer more in imagination than in reality,” has aged extraordinarily well.
An Evolutionary Brain in a Hyper-Comfortable World
Part of the story is simply that our brains were not built for the world we live in. For most of human history, daily life involved effort: walking far distances, enduring temperature swings, waiting long hours, facing uncertainty, and depending on small, tight-knit social groups. These weren’t inconveniences; they were everyday life. They were also the forces that shaped our emotional regulation systems.
Modern life, in contrast, is low-effort, hyper-stimulating, and surprisingly isolating. This mismatch between what our bodies expect and what we actually experience is a significant source of mental strain (Hoogland & Ploeger, 2022). Evolution didn’t prepare us for endless comfort. When a system built for fluctuation and challenge is placed in a world of monotony and ease, it starts to misfire.
Where Social Media Magnifies Both Creeps
Social media wipes out the productive discomforts that used to be built into our days: waiting in line, tolerating boredom, sitting in silence. It supplies instant stimulation, instant comparison, and instant feedback. Problematic or comparison-heavy use is linked with higher anxiety, poorer sleep, and lower well-being (Ahmed et al., 2024; Shannon et al., 2022), and even the positive sides of social media tend to produce only small improvements (Marciano et al., 2024).
Put this all together, and something becomes clear: We are living in an environment that encourages us to see small things as big things and big things as unbearable. It’s not surprising that we’re emotionally stretched thin.
Reversing the Creeps Through Chosen Discomfort
The antidote to all this isn’t to throw away comfort or abandon technology. Comfort isn’t the enemy; unconscious comfort is. Easter argues for bringing back small, intentional doses of discomfort—physical, emotional, and cognitive—to help recalibrate our systems. A brisk walk when driving would be easier, a deliberate phone-free moment of boredom, or pausing before reacting to a difficult feeling can all nudge our brains back toward equilibrium.
These little acts of chosen friction remind the nervous system that it can handle more than it thinks. They widen our tolerance for life’s inevitable frustrations. They help us see problems in proportion. And importantly, they allow comfort to feel like comfort again, something to appreciate, rather than something we are entitled to.
They also reconnect us with meaning. The most fulfilling parts of life, parenting, relationships, learning, creating, and contributing, have always required effort. Intentional discomfort brings back the emotional range we were designed for.
The Hopeful Path Forward
The goal isn’t to glorify grit or romanticize suffering. It’s simply to notice how the absence of friction can quietly erode our well-being. When comfort becomes constant, it stops feeling good. When we never experience discomfort, our expectations inflate until ordinary life feels perpetually disappointing.
By reintroducing small, manageable challenges, we rebalance the system. Comfort feels sweeter. Frustration feels less threatening. And life feels more navigable.
Easter’s message is ultimately hopeful. We don’t need to escape to the wilderness or abandon modern life. We need to remember that humans were built for more than comfort, and that a bit of discomfort, chosen wisely, can bring us back to ourselves.
